#and all my servants are good

[tapakah0]

Okay! I don't know where you got the idea from and my best guess is that your brain is connected to mine via bluetooth but.

Me and Hoddie have a royal au and your animation made me think of it again.

Nothing crazy special, but...ah...I should probably give a little context yeah...hmm.

Uh, okay. There's a kingdom. whose king and queen have died, leaving behind several possible heirs who are not their direct children. Right now, the king's first general is sitting on the throne, because the power of the army is, you know, a pretty powerful argument in a fight for the throne, right? This creepy regent is Cass. And Cass came to power thanks to Hoddie, who's basically the king's heir too, but she's pretty distant and her chances of the throne are quite slim. This has made her a professional rat and back stabber. The whole palace is busy weaving intrigue and destroying each other in a competition for power. Contests in cunning and sneakiness. A maximally intellectually uncomfortable environment in general.

Until Hoddie finds the true heiress. The king's blood daughter, to whom the throne should rightfully belong.

Problem? The problem is that the heiress needs to be two years older to be old enough to rule. And Hoddie and Cass' goal is to make sure she lives to that age in an environment where every other person wants to frame or kill her.

That heiress is you, Tap. But we couldn't think of what you'd look like in this au ahaha.

MHHMMM I SEE ONCE IN A WHILE BRAIN BLUETOOTH IS A GOOD THING you left me a window for my part and I grabbed this opportunity with sharp teeth Since there was no mention of my part, I have the audacity to add my own version. Did I understand correctly that my existence as an heiress was not known? It would be strange if the king was not looking for me, if I was the only heir (by blood), which means they were hoping for a new child, or already had plans for an indirect heir, or wanted to hide me. What other power is there, besides the king and the army, that holds the common people? Church. The king could have sent me to be trained as a priestess in order to gain support from them (either I was not considered worthy of receiving the throne in the future, which is why they preferred to hide me, or the king so badly needed their support that he was ready to sacrifice his only blood daughter) . Thus, from a young age, the beauty of a non-existent world somewhere beyond the heavens was drummed into my head and, in general, “God speaks all our actions.” I have an inconspicuous appearance, a position above a simple servant, but such priests are usually considered to be the daughters of high nobles, but not the king himself, which is why not everyone could know who I really was. Thus, they forgot about my existence ~ After the death of the king and all the heirs, the church quickly realized what to do next, and crushed me to itself, hiding me from the world until I reached the age of succession to the throne. (But children could take the throne under a regent. Could Hoodi become my regent as one of the older contenders for the throne?) So, back to the turmoil. Hoodie found me at church. Since childhood, my worldview could have changed greatly under the influence of the church, so, well, you will have to hammer a lot into my head, in addition to the throne’s education (You know... it's bit complicated to make a human sona not as a stupid little ball XDD... it literally can't get a shape at this point... maybe you will place a real bunny as the new king? It will be eating cabbage 24/7 and everyone will be happy)

[gdn019283]

They should have dwelled more into Merlin’s skills (and I’m not talking about just magic)

As I rewatched Merlin, I realised this man has so many skills?!

We often talk about how surely Arthur must have thought him how to use a sword (I agree 100%) but Merlin also knows how to hunt?

He dislikes it, yet years and years of going hunting with Arthur proves to be fruitful. Merlin founds the deer in season four before the entire Camelot patrol. He knows how to recognise tracks on trees and traces of feet in the mud (he knows how to build them in the right way with magic, too). And I have proof that Arthur teaches Merlin, because in season five, Arthur makes Merlin see what was wrong with the branch. when they went out and Arthur noticed that someone (Mordred) had walked past the woods.

Also, season four, episode two? Merlin wakes up before Lancelot and HE IS HUNTING FISH LIKE A MASTER?!

Have we talked about this? Who taught him? I believe most things he already knew how to do, since he grew up in a village with a single mother where everyone had to fetch up for themselves.

He also knows how to cook. And he gets compliments (even if they are jokes) from the Knights and Arthur himself too.

HE IS A PHYSICIAN, and I wished we could have seen so much more of that, because he is hot, because it proves that is so good at learning, listening and also teaching. He tells Daegal how to get rid of the poison, poison, in his body and HE IS STILL SO HUMBLE ABOUT IT?! He spent more than ten years being an apprentice and when Daegal tells him he is a good physician, Merlin denies it?! Bro has low self esteem.

Merlin also has all the skills required from a servant, like sewing, cleaning specific fabric in a certain way, polishing armour and so many other things, adjusting swords and weapons ecc.

I guess it pisses me off when Merlin is described (heavily in fanfictions too) like an incapable manservant, unable to do things for himself or defend himself without magic, when he spent ten years in Camelot doing new work after new work. Just because he was scared at the end of season five without his powers (because he had never lost them before) it doesn’t mean Merlin isn’t capable of using a sword, or help himself, since he does and challenges Morgana too, even without powers.

[poisonedfate]

bbc merlin - 04x07 The Secret Sharer

most powerful sorcerer ever or walking and talking calendar to the so-not-a-morning-person king?

[maypersonne]

Shang Qinghua really does think that he is unlovable huh

He really thinks that he is of no value to anyone if he isn't making himself useful he will be disposed off and that will be it

He genuinely believes no would ever want him so he manipulate and posture as a lesser so to be seen as a necessary annoyance rather than the pest he believes himself to be

He hates all the work he has to do but he prefers exhaustion to the paranoia and anxiety that eat him up when he isn't showcasing his value

He is in a constant battle just to be acceptable rather than loved so he can just be in the presence of those who are dear to him

Like damn like father like son I can see where binghe got all his issues like airplane bro stop unloading it all on your OCs look you gave the poor dear anxiety

[lunakataaahhh-1228]

a call back to the very first art of those two I ever posted on here 🤗 and how I like to think both Daybit and Gudako handle being in the same room with their respective chaotic Aztec gods.

also decided to give Gudako my piercings ~

[alexjcrowley]

Btw I can't believe all the Hamilton edits with Hamilton the musical, especially to Wait for it but when they're done with Carlos

Like girl be fr if someone is his Burr that's not Carlos that's Nico fucking Rosberg, he owned that role

Carlos and Lewis have had beef for a month because Vasseur gave Lewis Carlos's job, you want bitter soul crushing rivalry that's been destroying another guy's life step by step, that's been booked by Britney since day one

[goldkirk]

.

[swordscleric]

I don't know if anyone's gone through the original Dawn War pantheon* and compared the events of the Dawn War to the events of the Calamity, but it's interesting comparing how Tharizdun acts in the Dawn War to how little we know about it as the Chained Oblivion and might be useful as a theory-crafting aid for how the Chained Oblivion fits with Predathos**.

In the Dawn War, Tharizdun was a normal god, driven mad by extradimensional demons who provided him with huge amounts of power and attempted to force him to open a portal in the Astral Plane to release them. He took this power, and instead of releasing them created the Abyss. He and his would-be masters fought to a stalemate over control of the Abyss, until the rest of the pantheon found out and sealed him away, leaving him chained to a remote part of the Abyss[1].

By contrast, the Chained Oblivion is "something other entirely"[2], "less like a god and more like another world"[3]; it's been categorised as not of the Primes or Betrayers[4], and generally Matt has leaned much more into the cosmic horror vibes (sans a connection to the Far Realm) of the Chained Oblivion. It's a creature of "roiling ink and hungry darkness"[5], and was sealed at the bottom of the Abyss by the Dawnfather and the Knowing Mistress, with support from the Allhammer and the Changebringer[2, 3, 6]. The Chained Oblivion also wants to consume all and end the world and is kept at arms length by the Betrayers[5], and as a result of that plus its association with an unknowable hunger some people have now associated it with Predathos or think it and Predathos are of a similar species.

I think the Chained Oblivion is not Predathos in another form, but I do think that it's of a similar species. Looking at the Dawn War, and assuming (with the full acknowledgement that I'll more than likely be wrong) that Matt will stick as closely to the Dawn War as he has in the past, I think the Chained Oblivion is a smaller and weaker being of nothingness that decided to forge its own path instead of following Predathos' lead. My gut instinct is that the Chained Oblivion, seeing Ethedok and Vordo get eaten, took up Ethedok's mantle of darkness[7]*** and avoided working with Predathos and porentially fought the God Eater in order to survive and work its own odd plans of destruction. The Chained Oblivion makes a lot of plans to try and free itself (see the Angel of Irons or Cognouza), so I wouldn't be surprised if its propensity towards planning was present from the very moment it set foot on Exandria. Does this mean the Chained Oblivion will be let loose to fight the God Eater if Predathos is released? I doubt it, considering that it nearly killed the Knowing Mistress. And we know how the gods feel about family.

Footnotes

*The Dawn War pantheon is the slimmed down pantheon used for 4th edition D&D; can be found on page 11 of the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Used by Matt for the Primes & Betrayers with the addition of Sarenrae from Pathfinder.

**I'm aware of the pitfalls of using existing narratives and non-Exandrian lore to try and predict what's going on in CR at this moment in time; while there's not a 1:1 overlap between other D&D worlds' lore and Exandria, some of the major relationships do stay the same. For example, Pelor, Ioun and Tharizdun are all linked in Exandria and in D&D "canon" (Pelor, Ioun and Tharizdun all looked into the Far Realm and saw mysterious secrets, secrets which drove Tharizdun to want to destroy the universe as per Gates of Madness (2010). Additionally, Tharizdun is deeply associated with the Abyss across both settings). Bear with me.

***Zehir, the Cloaked Serpent is also associated with darkness; however while the Lawbearer and the Platinum Dragon are associated with order there is no explicit god of order which was Vordo's other domain. The Chained Oblivion is explicitly described as a god of darkness in both the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (page 27) and the Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn (page 34).

References

1. Demonomicon (2010), pages 7-9. The wording of how the sealing took place is intentionally vague as it's a plot hook for DMs to expand on in their campaigns.

2. Titles and Tattoos, CR Campaign 2, Episode 84, from 14:00.

3. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (2020), page 27.

4. Matt's Discord post during Nick Marini's AMA (linked here).

5. Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn, page 36.

6. The Endless Atheneum, CR Campaign 1, Episode 106, from 1:08:16.

7. Axiom Shaken, CR Campaign 3, Episode 43, at 3:02:19.

[nyaskitten]

It's so weird how after season 1, it seems like Ninjago completely forgot why Pythor even does the evil shit he does. His express goals in season 1 was for revenge against all mankind for locking him and all of Serpentine-kind in tombs, but then come season 3 his goal is to help the Overlord take over Ninjago? That's his big revenge goal against the ninja? Then in season 4 he sides with the ninja, to stop the fake Anacondrai, then in DotD he just really wants to finish off the Garmadon heritage, THEN in Crystalized his big plan is. To be a member of the Overlord's big evil club and blindly follow his bidding?

No matter how consistently FUNNY Pythor is, the writers fumbled him REAL hard I think.

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

The Winged Servant - 5

cws: multiple whumpers mentioned (only one doing actual whumping here), winged whumpee, electrocution by shock collar, royal whumper, mentions of restricting food, accidental self-harm, let me know if I missed anything!

masterlist

“Honestly, I feel like just letting you skip dinner would be a better fitting punishment.” I did my best to keep my wings from shaking while Prince Ryan tightened the collar by one notch. “You were late giving her food, so your food is restricted. Natural consequences and all that. But you know how she is about corporal punishment. And since she’s the one you messed up in front of, she gets to decide.”

He fiddled with the remote, presumably changing the settings so that it would hurt more. I would not shake. I needed to be able to stay composed.

“You’re getting three shocks. One for each minute you were late. Does that seem fair?”

“I will accept whatever punishment you see as fit, Your Highness.”

He smiled. “Yeah, I know you will.”

The first shock wasn’t bad. I arched my back and gasped a little, but it was almost the same as the shocks that woke me up every morning.

The second shock would be worse. That was how it worked—the shock was a bit stronger every time. The worst part wasn’t the actual shock, though. No, the worst part was waiting for the next one and not being sure when it would come. I closed my eyes so that I couldn’t stare at the remote, waiting for the shock to hit. I took a slow breath, and-

Fuck.

A strangled noise escaped my throat, and I bit down on my fist to keep any more sound from getting out. I bit until I tasted blood, trying not to sway, before I finally dropped my hand back to my side. “Sorry, I- My apologies. Your Highness.”

“You’re good. You can make noise if you’d like.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Mm. You wanna sit down for the third one? Your legs already look pretty shaky, and the last one is always the worst."

Had they always been this bad? Before I’d been properly trained, I’d had to sit through ten, getting worse at every level, and here I was with shaky legs at the second level.

“I need an answer, Onyx. It’s not like I electrocuted you enough to kill your vocal chords.”

“My apologies, Your Highness. I’ll- yeah, I’ll sit down. Thank you for offering.”

Her Majesty liked it when I was graceful. Prince Ryan wasn’t as particular, which was good, because I wasn’t sure how much gracefulness I had left in me as I collapsed to my knees. Tears pricked at the edges of my eyes, and I took a slow breath. Crying wouldn’t help me right now. Crying would probably make everything worse, because I’d already been told not to. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe-

Fuck fuck fuck that fucking hurts fuck.

It took a moment for my eyes to focus on Prince Ryan’s face in front of me. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d kept my eyes closed or if the shock had been bad enough to mess with my eyesight, but it didn’t really matter.

“Breathe,” Prince Ryan told me, pulling the collar off. “You’ve done this before. You’re okay.” I nodded, trying to stay focused, and he tilted my chin up, making sure there wasn’t any damage that would last. “You did such a good job.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” My voice was slightly raspy. Had I screamed during the last shock? I didn’t remember screaming, but that didn’t mean much.

“It’s been awhile since you’ve had this particular punishment, hasn’t it?” Prince Ryan wondered, but he didn’t look like he really wanted a response. “A year at least. I suppose whatever tolerance you’d had for the higher levels has left.” His fingers ghosted over where I’d bit into my hand, but didn’t quite make contact. “I’m not going to clean that. It’s small. It’ll be fine as long as you don’t pick at the scab, but please don’t do that again.”

“Do what, Your Highness?”

“Bite yourself. You didn’t mean to, did you?”

“No, Your Highness. My apologies.”

“You’re fine for today, but I can’t have you hurting yourself while I’m trying to punish you for specific things, alright? It’ll mess with your conditioning. If you get back into that habit I'm going to start muzzling you for punishments again. No one wants that.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” I did not want that. I would take whatever the royal family gave me during punishments, of course, because good servants did not have wants, but the texture of the bit in the muzzle always made me feel weird.

“Good. Okay. Tell me what you did wrong.”

“My sincerest apologies, Your Highness. I shouldn’t have been late taking Her Majesty's breakfast to her. It won’t happen again. Thank you for punishing me so that I remember not to repeat my mistakes.”

“Good boy,” he murmured, running fingers through my hair, and I let myself lean into his touch. That was always the phrase that meant we were done. I had done well enough. I wouldn’t be punished any more.

“Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Do you need a second? You’ve got about twelve minutes until Jayden needs your help serving dinner, and as long as you’re there on time, I don’t care if you take a break for now.”

“I, um.” I blinked hard. “Servants exist to please the crown, Your Highness. I don’t need-”

“I’m offering a break to you, Onyx. If you’d rather make sure dinner is all prepared, you can do that, but I won’t object if you’d like a few minutes to recover. We’re going to be… leaving for a bit tonight, and I don’t want you all pitiful and anxious like you were earlier. Okay?”

Prince Cardan was the only one who ever tried to trick me into things, but this felt like a trap. Prince Ryan looked serious, and like he wasn’t making fun of me, and wouldn’t it be rude to refuse a gift offered to me? “Thank you, Your Highness.”

“Make sure to turn the light off when you leave the room.”

I didn’t cry when he left, because I was down to probably eleven minutes and that almost certainly wasn’t enough time to cry. It’d have to be enough time to pull myself together, though. If I could do it in the three minutes I had before the punishment, I could do it in the eleven minutes after.

Breathe in, breathe out. I could do this, I knew how. Crying served no purpose and I didn’t need to do it.

Nine minutes left, I estimated.

Nine would have to do.

~

taglist: @kaleidoscope-of-thoughts @toyybox @rainydaywhump

[gideonisms]

See I think if I'd been born a guy I wouldn't be this pathologically avoidant trying to plan my career because there are plenty of situations you can find as a cis man where you just Do Tasks in awkward silence and you can get to those as a woman but you have to go through the rings of hell socializing first and then besides, a lot of those jobs already have so many men that you stand out when the whole point was you Don't want to do that

[vonlipvig]

totally arstotzkapilled

[lecinea]

My goodness there is a lot of bullshit in the Jiang Cheng tag again.

[tortoisesshells]

if you were in control of a dark shadows adaption (or, hypothetically, could alter the original; whichever you find more interesting to think about!) what does your ideal version of 1795 look like? are there things you would change? things you’d want to keep?

Let me preface this by saying I do genuinely like or appreciate a lot of the 1795 arc! When it's at its best, it's a tragedy born out of hubris and the terrible things we'll do for the people we love (or the terrible things we'll do to hold on to love. or the problem of love without respect). I'm up to episode 741, and the confrontation between Joshua and Barnabas over the latter's coffin is still one of the best scenes in the show, for my money. That said; Broadly speaking, most of my problems with 1795 either have to do with characterization, or with historical context: that DS's unwillingness to delve into historical realities undercuts its ability to talk about monsters, and that it completely mishandles Vicki to the point of functionally ruining the nominal main character (who, to be fair, was already being pushed out).

Historical Context: DS loves the past, conceptually, but it really doesn't deal in historical conditions, and that's on full display in 1795 - witchcraft trials? zippers? claiming a house built in the early 20th century, with the attendant architectural style, was actually built in the years leading up to 1795? okay. I forgive that, because we do live, narratively, in a world with witches and vampires and curses and passenger rail service north of Portland, ME after 1965 - and in a make-believe world where the costumes are as good as a budget of a crisp single and a pb&j can make 'em. I say this mostly lovingly: DS simply is not the kind of show that cares about historical plausibility, let alone accuracy. Plus, Reverend Trask was great, and on the basis of giving Jerry Lacy scenery to chew on, the witchcraft trial plotline is excused.

More seriously and damningly, I do think it's a glaring omission on a show being made and aired in the late 1960s to have three characters said to be from the (fictional) wealthiest family of planters and enslavers on Martinique and have that go unexamined and unpacked, especially when commentary on class in Collinsport has been a constant undercurrent (sometimes more of an under-trickle, or under-vague-breeze) since episode one - and because Joshua Collins is very explicit about how beneficial the connection between the two families will be for the Collinses, who always need cargo for their ships. [Since David Ford's here, you'll forgive the reference to 1776: "Molasses to Rum" playing vaguely in the background] But that's the problem with Post-Barnabas DS. Since there's a Collins running around befanged and literally drinking the blood of others, the show's lost interest in discussing how, exactly, the Collinses became wealthy and powerful, beyond the odd occasional reference to the fishing fleet and cannery or, in 1795, the shipyards. We've got a real vampire, what do we need all that metaphorical monstrosity and class/race/gender analysis for?

As a choice the show's made, I think it fundamentally undercuts one of the show's most reliable and interesting points of commentary: how charming and human some monsters are, or that humanity and monstrosity are not entirely mutually exclusive conditions.

also speaking of monstrosity. the show excuses Barnabas for so much outright evil because he preys on sex workers, primarily, and other assorted poor men and women of Collinsport, who the show ... doesn't really see as people. but that's a separate but not unrelated rant.

Characterization: really, this is about Vicki. So much of what I dislike about 1795 has to do with Vicki's characterization changing for the worse (granted, I think this problem starts much earlier, but see digression a below) once she hits the ground in 1795, AND that the 1795 arc continuously insulates her from the important parts of DS's narrative. If the whole point of Vicki landing in the past was to explain how it all began (whether that's Barnabas's vampirism, or the opening of the great house at Collinwood - Sarah's ghostly goals are unclear here), she's party to neither: Vicki spends very little time in Collinwood, and is kept completely apart from even a hint of knowledge that Barnabas is a vampire. In effect: Vicki, as nominal main character, gets sent into the past, but not as a character - she's just a windowpane, or a magic mirror as far as her importance to the narrative goes. Which is unfortunate for her, because as a character taking up space, she's given screen-time without agency, intelligence, or inner life. The only change that being dragged by her puppet strings through 1795 effects in Vicki Winters is a rope-burn from a failed hanging, an infected gunshot wound, and a I-wish-he-were-more-permanently-dead rebound boyfriend whose response to Vicki panicking about being hanged was to slap her for being hysterical.

Forgive me for being unimpressed.

As far as fixing it goes - there's where I've been striking out. She's fatally passive in 1795 as written. Why doesn't Vicki try to figure out how to get back to her present? (and if she doesn't, perhaps ... gesture at why Vicki might feel like there's not a lot to return to in the present? She nearly jumped from Widows' Hill about 10 episodes before 1795 started.) Why does Vicki persist in making herself suspicious, when she was introduced as a character hampered more by inexperience than true ignorance? In the idea 1795 that lives in my head, why wouldn't Vicki try to figure out who the real witch was, because - given her experiences with the supernatural! - surely a witch might be any help in getting her out of the 18th century and back into the present? End of day, she needs a real plot which doesn't end with her in prison unconnected to the Collinses. Whether that's searching for an escape hatch back to the Swinging Sixties, or Sarah's ghost giving her clear instructions - some kind of a goal! - Vicki either shouldn't exist in 1795 (recycle Moltke as another Collins sibling? that would add a wrinkle to the question of Vicki's antecedents) or she has to be given something to do.

&, finally ...

Digression A: In fairness to the 1795 arc, I think the arc was only following a pattern of characterization and plot involvement that started with Barnabas's arrival: first, that Vicki initially wasn't really involved in the Barnabas plot because she was more involved with the Liz & Jason plot, and, unfortunately for Vicki, everyone still talks about Barnabas, where no one (alas for Patrick and Bennett!) talks up the blackmail thing; second, I think, that the one-two punch of the definitive end of the era of metaphorical monsters & the Burke recast meant that a lot of the dramatic tension that Vicki was carrying either got dismissed or dissipated. We're not playing Jane Eyre any more, we're doing Dracula: Vicki's relationship with Roger and David no longer bears any dramatic weight. We've completely sidelined the question of Vicki's origins, so whether or not Liz is her mother doesn't matter (and the revelation and dismissal of Liz's not-actually-monstrous conduct sort of defangs that relationship, too? oh, Liz isn't actually a murderer? so mother or not, there's no strain on her relationship with the conspicuously virtuous Vicki.). Burke's no longer threatening to burn down Collinsport for revenge, and all of his various relationships with the Collinses or Collinsport denizens have gotten abruptly normalized, so there's no tension to his relationship with Vicki any more: he's rich (don't ask where the money came from), he's in love with her, and now he's chummy with all her friends/stand-in family members. He doesn't even have conversations that are totally just about pens or guns with Roger, for god's sake. The show kicked out all the pillars Victoria Winters as a character had been built on, and it only gets worse after 1795. No wonder Moltke left.

[handsomegentlebutch]

My 3 little cousins were baptized today. "Triggered" is kind of a strong word but being in a catholic church again... I'm a little fragile rn ngl.

[shigure]

man. oberon saying "i'm sorry i couldn't get rid of those proper human history bastards for you, titania" after he's already conflated guda with titania. what does it all mean.